Dr Sanduk Ruit and philanthropist Tej Kholi are working on the ground with the people of the developing nations to cure needless blindness; there is another individual who is changing the landscape to fight the same – billionaire MacKenzie Scott. The lady on Word Sight Day, on October 13, 2022, donated £13.5 million. The donation was given to a social enterprise named VisionSpring. It works with others in the same field to provide affordable eyeglasses. They also help with vision screening while training non-profit organizations, corporate clients, government agencies and social entrepreneurs with methods to offer a clear vision to people of every community.
Blurred vision is like cataracts and congenital eye diseases that affect millions. Without proper treatment, which is often the case in poverty-ridden communities, it affects not only the individual suffering from it but also the family, community and society in general. One easy solution for curing blurred vision is getting suitable eyeglasses, which are reported to have corrected 49 per cent of visual impairments.
The donation given by Scott will be used to provide the glasses to farmers, low-wage workers, artisans, and people who cannot afford to buy glasses, like those who work in tea, coffee and cocoa plantations. VisionSpring is believed to be utilizing the donation in nations like Bangladesh, Ghana and Uganda.
Since the establishment of VisionSpring in 2001, it has worked in 24 countries, distributing about 8.7 million pairs of glasses. It has been seen that people who got cured of blurred visions after receiving the pair of glasses from the charity were able to increase their productivity by 22 to 32 per cent.
The work Scott aligns with the work done by Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation. Tech entrepreneur Tej Kholi established it and is world-famous, often called the ‘God of Sight’ by his patient, Dr Sanduk Ruit. The aim is to cure blindness 500,000 needless blindness by 2030 as part of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals #2020inSight. Every cost of the screening and surgery will be borne by the Tej Kohli and the Kholi Family. So far, the organization has successfully cured 21,571 people of their blindness after screening 171,059 patients across Nepal and Bhutan.
Like VisionSpring, which works with other stakeholders to provide eyeglasses to the underserved people of every community, TKRF works closely with the local NGOs, hospitals, ophthalmologists and eye surgeons to ensure the work they have started can be continued in these regions.
Though the foundation has worked primarily in Nepal, its venture of restoring eyesight started in Bhutan. It will now extend to Bangladesh, Myanmar, India, Afghanistan, Rwanda, Lebanon, Tanzania, Syria, Tanzania and even North Korea.
Tej Kohli understands the importance of technology in fighting this blindness and the stigma that the patient suffering from the ailment carries. Hence Tej Kholi has invested heavily in developing solutions and in research that can benefit curing blindness. Tej Kohli established the Tej Kohli Cornea Institute and to offer better treatment, he invested in the Tej Kholi Applied Research for biosynthetic technology to provide accessible and affordable treatment for corneal blindness and other visual impairment.
The work done by TKRF uses the latest technology that Tej Kohli backs in offering minimally invasive cataract surgery that ensures fast recovery with minimal cost but with guaranteed results. But combat the challenges caused by needless blindness can be cured when others join the revolution, like Tej Kohli, Sanduk Ruit and MacKenzie Scott.
